Franco Elica, a film director, slides into despair after his daughter marries a devoted catholic. When he is asked, to his horror, to make yet another version of Alessandro Manzoni's 'The Betrothed' he flees to Sicily. Hiding out in a small village he meets a host of colorful characters: a man who makes his living shooting souvenir wedding films, a film director who is faking his own death to finally achieve the fame that has eluded him all his life and the cultured nobleman Prince Ferdinando Gravina di Palagolina. The Prince commissions Franco to shoot the wedding of his beautiful daughter, Bona. He falls instantly in love with the Princess and decides to make it his mission to save her from a marriage of convenience.